Imagine sitting back, relaxing and taking in the bright oranges, yellows and reds of Alaska’s leaf peeping season during a 4- to 6-hour journey on the Alaska Railroad. Starting in mid-August, the leaves start changing in Alaska’s short but vibrant autumn.
Get Inspired For many people, a trip to Alaska is a once-in-a-lifetime dream fulfilled. For others, it’s a return to one of their favorite places on the planet. And some visit once and decide to make the state their home. There are reasons aplenty to come to the Great Land and explore: An abundance of wildlife, unique cultural experiences, and unparalleled scenery are just a few. Building time into your itinerary to relax and absorb the small delights is always a good idea, too—enjoying quirky cafes, strolling through a boat harbor, groovin’ to some live local music. And if you’ve never been here, we hope these photos nudge you to start planning. Who knows, in just a few short months, you could be watching humpback whales bubble-net feeding or be flightseeing around the summit of Denali. After all, every adventure starts with an inspiration. —Susan Sommer 1. A pair of…
Want to know where to go and what to do in Alaska? Our executive editor and owner of Wild Departures has created this FREE 36-page guide to make planning your trip a bit easier. The downloadable guide is carefully curated and includes more than 50+ color images and 67 links to online resources for additional information. You can download here.
We could have filled several issues of Alaska magazine with driving excursions in the Great Land. Instead, we decided to focus on a few tried-and-true road trips and will direct you to our sister publication The MILEPOST® as the definitive guide to making your way mile by mile throughout every region of the state, along with the places to stop for rest, food, lodging, and activities—as well as how to stay safe and be prepared in remote regions. On the following pages, you’ll find easily accessible journeys with manageable mileage and plenty to see and do enroute and upon arrival. Let’s hit the road!
If you or your loved-ones take an Alaskan adventure this summer – big or small – consider bringing along these phone numbers.
Nome delights visitors year-round Known as a rough-and-tumble, gritty gold rush town and the finish line of the renowned Iditarod race, Nome offers more than precious minerals and mushing. The Seward Peninsula city of roughly 3,600 residents located on Norton Sound in the Bering Sea might be remote, but that doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible. In fact, warming winters have opened up Bering Strait waters for all but the coldest months of the year, leading to construction of the nation’s first deep-water arctic port. Slated to be completed within the next seven years, the $600 million project will allow 4,000-passenger cruise ships, cargo ships, and military vessels to dock 10 boats at a time, providing supplies to isolated outlying villages, protection from the increasing threats of foreign vessels, and additional tourism revenue for a city on the isolated tundra. In addition to major cruise line guests and Iditarod race followers, birders…
Keep frostbite at bay There’s a saying: there’s no such thing as bad weather if you have the right gear. Because I run trips through the winter months to some of the most inhospitable places on Earth and have damaged a few piggy toes with frostbite, I’ve learned the hard way what it takes to stay safe and (almost) toasty in the frigid north. I photograph polar bears, auroras, and the Iditarod—all of which can be found above the Arctic Circle from October through March—when smart folks opt for the beaches of Hawaii and Mexico. But truly, those people are unnecessarily missing out—big time. I blame my frostbite on stupidity, of course, but also on the adrenaline and awe that numb my common sense. Despite jackhammer shivering and the icepick piercing stings of 30 below temperatures, I refuse to exchange what just might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a cup…
Alaska’s version of a Caribbean private island Around 20 years ago, there was talk of creating a new Alaskan cruise destination, somewhat akin to the private island cruise ports in the Caribbean that had proven so popular. More than one company was said to be developing the concept. The one that came to fruition was Icy Strait Point, owned and operated by the Huna Totem Corporation. Icy Strait Point welcomed its first ship, Celebrity Cruises’ Mercury, on May 23, 2004. Since then, it has become a fixture on southeast Alaskan cruise itineraries. Its position some 30 miles west of Juneau on Chichagof Island, near the entrance to Glacier Bay National Park, puts it right in the path of cruise ships traveling the Inside Passage. Virtually every cruise line operating in Alaska calls here, and it’s not just the obvious megaship names like Princess and Royal Caribbean. Smaller yacht-like luxury ships…
A landslide has blocked travel since 2021 Work has started on a $100 million steel truss bridge that will bypass the Pretty Rocks landslide in Denali National Park. The slide has closed roughly half of the park’s 92-mile road since August 2021. Granite Construction is leading the project. For decades, National Park Service geologists have monitored the Pretty Rocks landslide at mile 43 of Denali’s sole access road. Its typical movement of a few inches per year caused regular but often minor road repair. But the slide accelerated in 2017, reaching nearly an inch per hour and eventually destroying the road. Scientists say dramatically warming air temperatures and increasingly heavy rainfall have deteriorated the ice and permafrost that once glued the slope together. Similar events are happening across Alaska and other high-latitude areas affected by rapid climate warming. Park superintendent Brooke Merrell says the road closure impacts work at the…
Becca Wolfe and John Wolfe Jr. Honor a Legacy Half a century after Helen Nienhueser published the popular guidebook 55 Ways to the Wilderness in Southcentral Alaska, her son and granddaughter have released a revamped and expanded trail guide to hiking, biking, paddling, skiing, and skating in the mountains and rivers around Anchorage, from the Kenai Peninsula to Mat-Su valley to the Copper River basin. In their new book, Alaska Adventure 55 Ways, authors John Wolfe Jr. and Rebecca Wolfe celebrate Alaska’s wilderness and their family tradition of being out in it. It’s so cool that this book now spans three generations of your family. How did it first come about? Becca: My grandmother found herself and found the love of her life in these mountains. She wrote the book with the intention of getting more people out to fall in love with the wilderness. It’s sort of endemic to…
